#107: How to Warm Up to Lift Heavy Weights

So, you've been lifting for a while, applying progressive overload, and you're at the point where the weights are getting heavy. 

Of course, heavy is always relative (what's heavy for you is not the same as what's heavy for someone else). 

But you know what I mean: when you get to the point where the idea of just grabbing your working weights and going for it feels like not such a good idea. 

If some Personal Trainer or fitness influencer told you that 15 minutes of cardio is the best way to warm up, I disagree. 

In this episode of the podcast, I share the best way to warm up to lift heavy - including some concrete examples of how to warm up for heavy sets. Use this method to get the most out of your training sessions and minimize the risk of injury.

Resources mentioned in the episode: 

• My mobility warm-up for upper body >>
• My mobility warm-up for lower body >>

Transcript

#107: How to Warm Up to Lift Heavy Weights

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach. And for those of you who may not know what that means, cause it occurred to me one day. It means that I've actually studied what goes on with women's bodies in menopause so that I help specifically women in this stage. So if you're in perimenopause and beyond, then you are the women that I am speaking to. And today I have a question from somebody who is one of my students. So last fall, I had a whole slew of women join my Do It Yourself program at home.
Actually, most of them train. at home. And, now they've gotten to the point where they really are lifting significantly heavier because of course, weight training is a [00:01:00] journey. And when you start out, you're kind of learning the movements. You start doing the progressive overload and it takes months for you to get to the point where you really feel like, okay, all right now.
There's like a shift that happens at that point and you start to lift really heavier. And that means that you can't necessarily walk right into the weight room and just pick up the weights and get going. You do need to warm yourself up properly. One of the things that I've heard and seen so many personal trainers suggest is 15 minutes of some kind of cardio.
Now, if you are cold, okay, so maybe you live in a cold climate, you haven't moved all day, and you really feel like your blood's not moving at all, then sure, you could do a little bit of cardio, I would do something where you're moving your [00:02:00] arms and your legs, because you're going to be using your whole body, when you're weight training, even if you're just doing legs, because your hands will be holding the weight, And this kind of thing, but.
If that is not the case, so I've probably done that twice, and I'm starting on my fourth year of weight training here. Uh, and those were days where literally my, my fingers were numb because it was just cold outside and the weight room was cold because I live up north and they don't heat it very much.
So I was like, Oh, even if I have long sleeves on, I'm cold. I need to warm my body up. And so I did. But normally. Normally, what I do is I go in and I do some mobility work. I have one song that I play every time I go in there. So actually, when I turn on that music, my body kind of Starts to realize that, ah, okay, it's, [00:03:00] it's weight training day again, and then I start going through the same mobility routine every single time, which is that I am oiling my joints.
So if it's a lower body exercise, and today let's talk about RDLs as the example of our lifting heavy, because that's generally one where. Women do start to lift heavy, so warming up my lower body, so I'm making sure that I'm moving my hips in their sockets, that I'm doing a little bit of knee movement, my ankles, and then I warm up with a few split squats and just to get the blood flowing in to my legs.
And then I'm done, literally before that music is finished, like that one song, which I think is three minutes long, I'm ready to go into my warmup set. And on days when I have RDLs on my programming, that is where I [00:04:00] start. And the reason I start with RDLs is I want to have as fresh a body as possible.
Because RDLs, you're lifting heavy because it is big muscles that are doing the work, your glutes, the backs of your legs. So your hamstrings, but then your lower back is also being challenged to some degree there and your core for you to be able to hold the weight. So for that reason, I generally start with the RDLs.
But at this point, for example, and I'm going to use numbers, not because you need to think like, oh my God, I need to be doing that much or, or I need to do more or whatever, but just to make it easier for you to follow along with what I'm doing here. So, at this point, I am up to sets with 70 kilos of weight.
Now, I weigh 63 kilos, so it's over my body weight, so it is a heavy weight. [00:05:00] And, if I was to just put that on the bar and then get started doing sets, I would be pretty afraid of hurting myself, honestly. So I build up to that gradually. And this is absolutely what I recommend for everybody, my students included.
And it's what I have in my training program is how to warm up to this as well. But so anyway, so since this is an exercise that at this point I'm not doing with dumbbells because they're getting so heavy, those dumbbells, I am using a bar with plates on it. I start with just the bar. Now, the bar weighs 20 kilos, so it is less than a third of what my working weight is going to be.
And I do a long set with the bar. So I will do at least 10 reps, maybe 12. [00:06:00] And that is the time where I'm kind of warming up the muscles that are going to be used. I'm reminding myself of all the technique and the form issues because RDLs, it's a hip hinge movement. It's one of the toughest ones to really get down.
So You know, I want to make sure that I'm remembering, shoulder blades together, head in this position. Think about pushing your butt back, all the things that you need to think about when you're doing an RDL. So 10 reps like that. Then I put. A couple of plates on the bar, so generally I'll put a ten and a ten so then it's 40 is my next weight. So the first one was 20, which was just the bar. Then I moved up to 40. Remember, my goal is 70. So then I'm at 40, which is a little bit more [00:07:00] than half of the weight that I'll be doing as a working weight. And I will do three or four reps like that. That's still not a heavy amount for me, so it's where my body is like, Okay, now this is a little bit heavier, right?
So, of course, you're having to brace in a different way and move in a different way versus just the bar. If you went straight from the bar. To your working weight, that would be such a big leap that I think it would be a little bit of a shock to the, to the body to do that. So I'll do maybe three reps like that.
Then I'll add another 10 kilos. I mean, I am super cautious. I will say this. I am super cautious when it comes. To warming up for these bigger lifts, the ones that are heavy, because I don't want to hurt myself. I don't want to pull anything. Also, as I do these mini short sets, I don't rest between them. So they really don't take much time. I'm [00:08:00] anyway going to have to put those plates on the bar, I just take the time to do. One or two reps as I'm loading plates onto the bar. To recap. I started by doing just the bar.
So that's 20 kilos, just the bar. And I did about 10 reps of that. Then I added 20 kilos to the bar, so we ended up at 40 kilos, and I do about three reps with that. Then I'll add another 10 kilos to the bar, so at this point we're at 50, and I'll do one, maybe two, if it's a day where I feel like, oh, my form isn't feeling that great, I need a little bit more reminder, you know, of the form.
And then I'll, go up to my full weight. And before doing my full weight I'll take a minute break to kind of let my body recover from the warmup. Could even take a two minute break to let my body recover from the [00:09:00] warmup. And then I will do my working set. And I want to remind you that, how heavy.
You're doing your sets and how close to failure you want to push yourself. Depends very much on the exercise. Now, in an exercise like RDLs, where your lower back is being used and therefore it's, you know, a little bit at risk if you start to push yourself beyond your limits, then you stay farther away from going to failure.
Of course, If you can't get up from the RDL, you could drop the weight on the floor, but. I hope you never get to that point, right? So I hope that you will, end your set when you have one or two reps in reserve. 
Now, if we look at another example of an exercise warming up, we could look at shoulder presses, for [00:10:00] example. I warm up my shoulders by doing my upper body mobility warmup, which has shoulder circles and moving my upper body and getting my spine.
I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to check out my warmup sequences. I'm happy to share them. And, uh, and then right now my working weight on the shoulder presses is 15 kilos. And that is it. Is a fairly heavyweight. I know so many days I pick the 15s up off of the, off of the weight rack. And I'm like, whew, you know, these, this is weight, right?
So you want to get your body kind of ready for that. So what I do is I will start with half of what my working weight is as far as dumbbells go. So 15 is my working weight. So I'll [00:11:00] start with sevens and With the sevens it isn't as light as the bar was for the RDLs. So with the sevens I'll do Maybe a set of eight if I'm feeling like my shoulders really need some warm up and my arms need warm up.
I might do a set of 10. But anyway, the first set is a longer set to get me through the movement to kind of wake up my muscles to get the blood. Flowing to those muscles that are going to be used. And also to remind myself of my technique, that my elbows are going to be at about 45 degrees to the side and, and make sure that my wrist positioning is good and all these things.
And then I will move up to a 10 kilo weight. So from seven to 10 kilos. And then I do one more jump, which is 12 and a half. And then I [00:12:00] finally, while I take that break for a minute, and then I finally get into my working set. Now with shoulders, the reason I do this progression like that is that I've just noticed that, I mean, the 15 is heavy.
When I first started doing the 15s, It was like three reps was all I could do, but at my gym, there's no choice but to go from a 12 and a half to a 15. There's nothing in between. And if you think about the relative jump there, that is a big jump for some shoulder muscles. So I make sure that I warmed them up properly.
So what's the takeaway here? I don't want you to have to start doing a whole lot of math when you're at the weight room. I guess the biggest takeaway is that When you start getting to the point where you actually are lifting heavy, where those weights feel heavy for you from [00:13:00] rep number one, you need to do warm upsets.
Warm upsets are a good habit to get into right from the start. I program them in for my clients. Always, and when you're doing your warmup sets, a good rule of thumb is to start with about half of your working weight and then do one or two like intermediate weights before you get to your full weight. 
But you also need to learn to listen to your body and figure out what it needs. So my knees are arthritic and I have to be a little bit more careful with them.
And on some days my knees won't let me lift as heavy and some days it will let me lift like, like I was 20 again, right? So I actually do a heck of a long warm up on, for example, my leg presses. And I mean, this is, I described it in my [00:14:00] working with cranky, knees episode, but if my working weight is Let's just choose a random number 200, okay, then I would start with a warm up set of doing 100 and then I literally like I move up the weight stack like every other peg and I'll do one or two reps and each rep.
Or each time I move up the peg, I'm testing kind of like, does this feel okay for my knee? Okay. This is fine for my knee. Let's try the next one. Okay. Is this okay for my knee? Yeah, this is fine too. Next one. Is this good for my knee? Yep. This one. And then I've learned, I've learned from trial and error.
That once my knee feels a certain way, it's like this teeny tiny tinge that comes in my, my knee. I'm like, this is the weight that I'm going to be using today. And I'm not going any higher, even if I could go higher. [00:15:00] It usually is pretty close to my max weight, but. There are some days, I don't know if it's the weather or what it is, maybe I've walked more or whatever, but some days it'll let me work and train it harder than others, but I will always train just, just sometimes having to modify what I'm doing.
Anyway, so I hope this was helpful to you as you progress in your weight training journey. Remember that you don't want to, especially at this age, just run in there and pick up a bunch of heavy weights because that is when you can hurt yourself. So on your first exercises, do warmup sets. Now later in your training session, you won't need to do warmup sets.
Just like, for example, on arms days, I've already done. Pull ups and shoulder presses by the time I get to biceps and triceps. So they're warm, they're [00:16:00] warm because they're used in pretty much all the other upper body exercises. So I don't need to warm up to my bicep curl weight or my tricep extension weight.
So those are fine. And I don't warm up my calves, for example, or my inner or outer thighs. , so those accessory exercises that are happening at the end of the session, them I don't warm up for, just the major lifts, usually the first two exercises that I do. Okay. If you have any questions, reach out to me and I'll be happy to answer.
And um, yeah, with that, I wish you happy training.